Welcome to this month's Poppins Book Nook - a monthly themed virtual book club for kids! This month's theme is Farms, and it was hard deciding which farm book to feature because there are so many wonderful choices. We decided on Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm, and came up with a fun filled activity that preschoolers will love!

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm is a charming story about a cow, a pig, and a duck who live with Mrs. Wishy Washy on her farm. Mrs. Wishy Washy loves to give her animals baths, much to their chagrin! Tired of the wash tub, the animals run away to the city. There they get into all sorts of mischief and discover that life on the farm isn't so bad after all.

My boys love this book. It has fun rhyming text that is perfect for reading aloud. Their favorite part is when the animals stumble into a hardware store and get covered in paint - so that's what we recreated for our activity!

We set up our activity outside because it was a beautiful Spring day and we were planning to get messy! You can easily do this indoors though, just put down a towel or sheet.

Fill your bucket or tub with soapy water and set aside along with your sponges or wash brushes. Then set out the pig, duck, and cow with cups of yellow, blue, and red paint.

Give your kids paint brushes and invite them to paint the animals (or as mine say, "make them dirty!")

My boys were really into making the animals look like they do in the book, and using the brushes on the animal figures was great fine motor practice too.

Once they are all painted, it's time to go into Mrs. Wishy-Washy's tub for a bath!

Invite them to use sponges, brushes, or their hands to get the animals clean. This is a really fun way to play with water and work on our washing skills!

And finally, the animals are clean!

We have had so much fun with this activity that my boys keep asking to do it again and again. It's a wonderful way to bring a book to life by recreating their favorite parts, and also gives us a great opportunity for messy play and work on fine motor skills. We love it!